By Elliott Oppenheim, MD JD LLM Health Law, Florence
I am dizzy. How can any one of us make sense of anything in these confusing times? What is true?
I get my mail at the Lolo Post Office. I often talk to folks at the Post Office in order to metaphorically take the dual counties’ temperatures. There was a man with a long pony tail and wire-rimmed glasses who asked me, “What’s the deal with the mask? It’s over,” he said. “This virus is gone,” he said.
“I wear my mask to protect me and to protect you,” I replied. “This virus is in for the long haul. I think we’ll be dealing with it next year at this time.”
“I don’t believe all this science nonsense (he didn’t exactly say it that way … ) about those masks. What is science, anyway? Who invented science? Who says so?”
I think he had a point there about “who says so?” Let me explain. I have detected a disconnect in modern times, a disbelief in science. Many people no longer trust science. What is science? How do we know when we have a competent opinion that we should follow?
… and anyhow, experience guides us. Right? “I know what I know,” I have heard people say. “I don’t need science.”
That would be an example of phenomenological thinking. For instance, you misplace your car keys and ascribe it to demons overtaking your life or punishment for bad conduct. What happened was that you were distracted and didn’t pay attention to where you set them.
Several thousand years ago there was no science. People looked at the world and interpreted what they saw empirically. If there was a blackout of the sun, what we now know as an eclipse due to predictable planetary movements in relation to our heliocentric universe, many people interpreted that to mean that celestial forces were retaliating against their bad ways.
Science is a body of empirical, theoretical, and practical knowledge about the natural world, produced by scientists, once called philosophers, who emphasize the observation, explanation, and prediction of real-world phenomena.
William Whewell in the 19th century appears to get the credit for the word “science.” Prior to that, investigators called themselves “natural philosophers.” Mankind has been making observations about the world for millennia: Thales and Aristotle, for instance. The scientific method has been around since the Middle Ages, and the scientific method has been employed since the Middle Ages: Ibn al-Haytham and Roger Bacon.
The core to identifying science from opinion, or empiric observation, is, that if a belief is true, it is true under all circumstances, given the same conditions. In science, we develop an hypothesis and attempt, through experimentation, to prove it false: to refute the hypothesis.
With empiricism, the opposite is true: to prove the observation true. This is called confirmation bias. … one selects conditions and observations to confirm the phenomenon. If you go to a huge rally in this COVID era and do not get sick, then these virus warnings must be bogus.
Until Copernicus, 1473-1543, mankind vigorously debated whether the sun revolved around the earth, or whether the earth evolved around the sun. Our universe is heliocentric; earth around the sun. Kepler defined planetary orbits and that the planets do not follow a circle, but an elliptical orbit.
… and why were the Dark Ages (also called the Middle Ages) so dark? The term was coined by an Italian scholar, Francesco Petrarch. The thousand-year period between 500 AD and 1500AD were dark because there was no information available. Knowledge was in closely held hands, predominantly religious. Religious superstition dominated this period where various events and social issues were attributed to spiritual failings: crop failings, birth deaths, infections, to name a few. Bad crops? Kill a witch …
There was a major advance in education in Europe and then Gutenberg invented the printing press in about 1439 and the “rest is history.” As soon as information became available, people no longer had to rely upon empiric observations. It became possible to test various theories. Modern science began to evolve in the early modern period, and in particular in the scientific revolution of 16th- and 17th-century Europe.
Then came Sir Isaac Newton, an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author, a “natural philosopher.” He was widely recognized as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. When he was boinked on the head by an apple in 1687, according to the tale, he elaborated a theory that applied to all objects, large and small, using mathematics: gravity.
Until recently, the advent of the Internet, it was difficult to tamper with thought. That is no longer the case. Anything, any theory may appear on the Internet as fact. Who knows what is true in media reporting? It is possible to generate “alternative facts.” … with no support.
What differentiates opinion from science is that science is dependable and results can be replicated. If the results are science, they are independent of opinion or alliances with axe to grind. Science is neutral.
This brings us to the clash taking place with this COVID-19 virus. I walk around every day with great anxiety over COVID-19. During the Black Plague, we learned that the ailing ships brought rats to ports and the fleas on the rats disseminated the Plague. Shut down rats, clean up the ships, and, voila … no more Plague.
In the mid-1800’s Semmelweis showed that handwashing stopped mothers from dying following childbirth. Pasteur showed that destroying bacteria in milk eliminated various bovine diseases from milk. … and people no longer got sick.
Lister developed the concept of sterile surgery. Sterility is the fundamental precept for personal, protective equipment: PPE’s. If we manage these viral particles, COVID-19 is halted.
When Ebola broke out in West Africa in 2013-2016, these cleaning regimens made the difference between life and death. COVID-19 is not as ravaging as Ebola but it must be respected with a morbidity of 4-6%. With COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization, 20% of those people who get COVID-19 will wind up on respirators and endure long ICU stays. Post-infection consequences are serious.
Garden variety flu has a mortality of about less than 0.1% … and most people are “all better.”
Worldwide, across over one-hundred countries, it is scientifically clear that masks cut down COVID-19 transmission. It is clear that handwashing cuts down transmission. No one disagrees with this with the exception of the “self-anointed geniuses” who, with no real rational support, ignore science.
COVID-19 is biologically interesting. It hits us right where we are most vulnerable … our immune system. How should we react to prevent getting this? In this COVID-19 context we keep hearing about experts. To whom should we listen? Who is an expert?
There are varying degrees of expertise in any field. By on-the-job training, (OJT), some people get “pretty good” over what they do and profess openly that they are an expert. In the highly specialized fields of epidemiology and infectious diseases, that sort of expertise comes only after significant academic accomplishments and lots of experience.
The fact that a person is of high social or political stature means nothing about that person’s ability to profess reliable knowledge.
Be wary of the “self-anointed genius” — someone who proclaims expertise with no particular credentials. Linus Pauling, who did win two Nobel prizes in chemistry, bloviated about vitamin C, claiming that it cured the common cold. Wasn’t true … no scientific support. Another myth is about sugar, that somehow sugar is detrimental to children and causes behavioral problems … no scientific support…
These experts — where they may have credentials in one field but offer opinions in other fields — are dangerous.
It is impossible to change someone’s mind when it comes to some of these personal choices. I go with science because it is dependable. In countries where they have followed the guidelines, look at their results: 1.38% mortality in Israel. US has almost 5% mortality. I am reminded of a Clint Eastwood quote… or maybe it was someone else. “Are you willing to bet on that?” If you want to be safe, wear your mask; wash your hands; use social distancing… The worst that will happen is … that you and your family will survive.
Mike Mercer says
Very scary number that 5% you use but I prefer a 95% recovery rate; darn good odds in my book. As we are an “Open Society” at least for now, I prefer my own counsel to purported “Experts”.
As for your stab at the Church; it was the single civilizing force on Earth – from the elevation of the individual and the abolition of human sacrifice, to the creation of charity as it is now widely understood, to hospitals to schools to art to just about everything we identify as a cultural norm today. Of course, there are those who would throw all of this out, which I submit would indeed start another Dark Age
TruthOverMDsLies says
Elliott Oppenheim, MD JD, says “Be wary of the “self-anointed genius” — someone who proclaims expertise with no particular credentials. Linus Pauling, who did win two Nobel prizes in chemistry, bloviated about vitamin C, claiming that it cured the common cold. Wasn’t true … no scientific support. [..]. These experts — where they may have credentials in one field but offer opinions in other fields — are dangerous.”
First, Dr. Oppenheim is wrong that Pauling’s claim has no scientific support. With almost total certainty you can bet on, the people who call the idea unsubstantiated or ridicule Pauling (the “self-anointed genius”) are either (1) pawns and hacks of the massive business of conventional medicine, such as Dr. Oppenheim, (2) unwitting people who repeat their propaganda, (3) people who never actually looked deeply into Pauling’s work and dietary supplements, or (4) people who fall into a combination of the former categories.
Primarily it is the corrupt BUSINESS of orthodox medicine, their high paid member, mouthpieces, and salespeople (eg Dr. Oppenheim), shills, bogus astroturfers, and their allied mainstream media outlets who keep ridiculing Pauling as some deluded Nobel Prize winner. And it doesn’t take a genius to see why: Pauling had been threatening the huge bottom line of big corporate medicine. Here is a good example of a hack MD who has been discrediting Pauling and supplements with disinformation and lies: search for the scholarly article “2 Big Lies: No Vitamin Benefits & Supplements Are Very Dangerous” by Rolf Hefti, a published author of the Orthomolecular Medicine News organization.
If you look closely, you’ll find that politics by the allopathy — instead of real science — is almost always behind the truly unscientific dumb attacks against Pauling. It’s indicative of how little real science is behind the various claims of traditional medicine.
Also, Dr. Oppenheim mentioned Semmelweis who “showed that handwashing stopped mothers from dying following childbirth.” What Oppenheim does NOT tell you deliberately is that Semmelweis was a “self-anointed genius” because he was a total outsider, not unlike Pauling, who according to the “real” medical experts, the MDs, had no clue what he was talking about so they ridiculed him for decades until he died a mental patient. Yet HE WAS RIGHT. The MD experts were wrong. Just like MD Oppenheim is wrong about Pauling. And Covid. Because science and medicine is totally commercialized today. Full of lies, distortions, deliberate omissions and many other frauds.
The real dangers to the public are not real outside the box thinking heroes like Semmelweis and Pauling but unwise conformist MDs (eg Oppenheim) and other “experts” — just read Marcia Angell´s book ”The Truth About the Drug Companies. How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It” (2004), Lynne McTaggart, “What Doctors Don’t Tell You: The Truth About the Dangers of Modern Medicine”, 2nd Edition, 2005, Carolyn Dean, et al, “Death By Medicine” (2003), Peter Gøtzsche’s “Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime” (2013), Robert Mendelsohn, “Confessions of a Medical Heretic” (1979), Uffe Ravnskov, “The Cholesterol Myths”, Malcolm Kendrick,”The Great Cholesterol Con”, and on and on and on.